HOLLAND HOUSE AND GARDENS 



attracted to itself whole constellations of wits and illustrious men 

 of letters, who clustered round the engaging personality of its 

 genial and cultivated master, the third Lord Holland. He had 

 adopted the political faith of his famous uncle, and Holland House 

 was for long the centre of the social life of the Whig party. To 

 mention Holland House at the beginning of the nineteenth century, 

 is to think of Rogers, and Sydney Smith and Sheridan, of Campbell 

 and Moore, Byron and Scott ; of Mackintosh and Canning, Hallam, 

 Macaulay, of Talleyrand, " the diplomatic wit and witty diploma- 

 tist ; " of Guizot, Madame de Stael ; of Philip Francis, supposed 

 author of " Junius," of Sir Samuel Romilly, of Lords Chancellor 

 Thurlow, Lyndhurst, and Erskine ; of Eldon, who spoke for the 

 prosecution, at the trial of Queen Caroline, and of Brougham, who 

 defended her, and who later carried the Reform Bill ; of the 

 two Humboldts, and Sir Humphrey Davy, Lord John Russell, and 

 Palmers ton, of Lord Holland himself, actively interested in the 

 abolition of the Slave Trade, Catholic Emancipation and Reform 

 nor can we forget the extraordinary woman who kept these guests 

 in order, and whose pungent wit added spice, and sometimes 

 vinegar, to the intellectual diet. 



The active history of the house begins when Henry Rich, Baron 

 Kensington and Earl of Holland, married the only daughter of 

 Sir Walter Cope of Cope Castle, Kensington, and succeeding in 

 right of his wife, changed the name of the mansion to Holland 

 House, and entertained there lavishly. The second son of the 

 Earl of Warwick and of Penelope his wife the " Stella " of Sir 

 Philip Sidney, Rich was a splendid courtier, and a great favourite 

 of James I. He modelled himself on the pattern of the Duke of 

 Buckingham, and almost equalled him in magnificence. 



However, when the Civil Wars broke out, the Earl wavered in 

 his allegiance to King Charles played fast and loose, and as a 

 consequence, did not retain the confidence of either of the con- 

 tending parties. Clarendon remarks that he was " a fine gentle- 

 man in good times, but too much desired to have ease and plenty 

 when the King could have neither, and did think poverty the most 

 unsupportable thing that could befall any man in his condition." 



The sequel was naturally and inevitably tragic. Rich, returning 

 to the King's side, headed an unsuccessful Royalist rising at 

 Kingston-on-Thames was taken prisoner, kept for a time a 



201 



